Acquirers' performance in hot and cold merger markets: evidence of mispricing

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to test the prediction that overpricing drives merger waves. Design/methodology/approach – The authors supplement proxies of overpricing from the existing literature such as subsequent under-performance, the form of consideration/financing and low Book-to-Market ratios with an approach based on analysts' earnings forecasts. The authors maintain that over-pricing is associated with relatively optimistically biased forecasts and use a metric based on subsequent earnings disappointments to represent mispricing. Findings – It is reported that acquirers in hot markets are overpriced relative to acquirers in cold markets on almost all measures of over-pricing thus supporting the behavioural theory. However, having controlled for optimistically biased expectations the long-run BHARs to acquisitions in hot markets exceed those of acquisitions made in cold markets. These results therefore support the neoclassical theory's contention that post-acquisition returns in merger waves are better than the unobserved alternative without the acquisition. The authors infer that neither the neoclassical nor behavioural theory on its own can provide a complete description of merger waves. Originality/value – The authors exploit earnings forecasts to establish evidence of overpricing in a manner that is novel to the M&A literature. It is found that financing/consideration is significant in explaining subsequent under-performance only in hot markets. This result is unaffected by controls for mispricing. The authors infer that the use of equity financing is driven by both behavioural timing and also by a desire to share any shortfall due to the increased potential for overpayment in hot markets.